The amount and data rate of traffic transmitted across optical communications networks continues to increase and network routers will therefore be required to route data at faster and faster rates, likely at data throughput rates in the range of tens or hundreds of Terabits per second (Tb/s). Electronic interconnection networks currently used within routers are approaching their fundamental operational limitations, particularly in terms of their power density.
Optical packet switches have been proposed as a solution for geographic area networks, where optical packets are transparently switched across several nodes of the network before reaching the destination. However, the limited capabilities of optical buffering and synchronization and issues related to the quality of transmission have significantly hampered this solution. Nevertheless optical packet switching is emerging as a feasible candidate to handle communications on smaller network scales where high transmission and switching capacity is required [O. Liboiron-Ladouceur et al., “The Data Vortex Optical Packet Switched Interconnection Network”, JLT, July 2008].